Rensselaer Republican, Volume 21, Number 22, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 31 January 1889 — SLANDERS AGAINST GOD. [ARTICLE]

SLANDERS AGAINST GOD.

THE DOCTRINES OP THE CHURCH BELITTLED AND MaLIGN,ED. But the Truth Still Prevails and the Gospel Will Survive—Dr. Talmage Hits Hard at Scoffers. Rev. Dr. Talmage preached at the Brooklyn tabernacle last Sunday. Subject: “Slanders Against Religion Answered” Text: Rev. x,: 10, 11, He Baid: All intelligent people have creeds—that is, favorite theories which they have adopted. Political creeds—that is, theories about tariff, about finance, about civil service, about government. Social creeds—that is, theories about manners and customs and good neighborhood. vEithetical creeds—that is, theories about tapestry, about brie abrac, about styles of ornamentation. Religiouscreeds—that i«, theories about the Deity, about the soul, about the great future. The only being who has no creed about any thing is the idiot. This Bcoffing against creeds is always a sign of profound ignorance on the part of the scoffer, for he has himself a hundred creeds in regard to other things. In our time the beliefs of evangelistic churches are under a fusillade of caricature and misrepresentation. Men set up what they call orthodox faith, and then they rake it with the musketry of their denunciation. They falsify what the Christian churches believe. They take evangelical doctrines and set them in a harsh and repulsive way, and. nut them out of the association with other truths. They are like a mad anatomist, who, desiring to tell what a man is, dissects a human body and hangs up in one place the heart, and in another place the two lungs, and in another place an ankle bone, and says that is a man. They are only fragments of a man wrenched out of their God appointed places. Evangelical religion is a symmetrical, well-jointed, roseate, bounding life, and like the scalpel and the dißßecting-knife of the infidel or the atheist can not tell you what it iis. Evangelical religion is as different from what it is represented to be by those 'enemies as the scare crow which the farmer puts in the cornfield to keep off the ravens is different from the farmer himself. . , For instance, the enemies of Evangelism say that the Presbyterian Church believes that God is a savage S vereign, and that He made some men just to oamn them, and that there are infants in hell a span long. These old slanders come down from generation to generation. The Presbyterian Church believes no such thiDg. The Presbyterian Church believes that God is a lbv.ng and just Sovereign, and that we are free agents. “No, no! that can not be,” say these men who have chewed up the creed and have the consequent stomachs. “That is impossible: if God is a Sovereign we can’t be free agents." Why, my friends, we admit this in every other direction. I, DeWitt Talmage, am a free citizen of - Brooklyn. I go when I please and I come when I please, butl haVeat least four Sovereigns. The Church Court of our denomination; that is my ecclesiastical* Sovereign. The Mayor of this city; he is my municipal Sovereign, The Governor of New York; he is my State Sovereign. The President of the United States; he is my National Sovereign. Four Sovereigns have I, and yet in every faculty of body, mind and soul I am a free man. So, you see, it is possible that the doctrines go side by side, and there is a common-sense way ot presenting it, and there is a way that is repulsive. If you have the two doctrines in a worldly direction, why not in a religious direction? If I choose tomorrow raorniDg to walk into the Mercantile Library and improve my mind, or to go through the conservatory of my friend at Jamaica, who has flowers from all lands growing under the arches of glass, and who has an aquarium, all asquirm with trout and gold fish, and there are trees bearing oranges and bananas—ff I want to go there I could, lam free to go. If I want to go over to Hoboken and leap into a furnace of an oil factory, if I want to jump|from the platform of the Philadelphia express train, if I want to leap from Brooklyn Bridge, I may. But suppose I should go to-morrow and leap into the furnace a* Hoboken, who would be to blame? That is all there is about sovereignty and free agency. God rules and reigns, and he has conservatories and blast furnaces. Ifyouwantto walk in the gardens, walk there. If you want to leap in the furnace, you may. ■ Suppose now a man had a charmed key with which he could open all the jails, and he should open Raymond street Jail and the New York Tombs and all, the prisons on th'e 'continent. In three weeks what kind of a country would this be? all the inmates turned out of those prisons and penitentiaries Suppose all the reprobates, the bad spirits, the outrageous spirits, should be turned into the new Jerusalem. Why. the next morning the gates of pearl would be found off hinge, the linchpin wouid be gone out of the chariot wheels, the “house of many mansions,” wouid be burglarized. Aseaiilt and battery, arson, libertinism and assassination would reside in the capital of theskies. Angels of God would be insulted on the streets. Heaven would be a dead failure if there were no great lock up. If all people without regard to their character when they leave this world go right into glory, I wonder if in the temple of the skies Charles Guiteau and John Wilkes Booth occupy the same pew. Your common sense demands two destinies! AncJ then as the Presbyterian Church believing there are infants in perdition; if you will bring me a Presbyterian of good morals and sound mind who will sav that he believes there ever was a baby in the lost world, or ever will be, I will make him a deed to the house I live in and he can take possession to-morrow. So the Episcopalian Church is misrepresented by the enemies of evangelism. They say that church substitute*, forms and ceremonies for heart religion, and it is ail a matter of liturgy and genuflexion False again. All Ephcopa'ians will tell you that the formß and creeds of their church are nothing unless the heart go with them,' r , Soalso the Baptist Church has been misrepresented. The enemies of Evangelism say the Baptist Church believes that unless a man is immersed he will never get into heaven. False again. All the Baptists, close communion and open communion, believe that if a man ac-

cept the Lord Jesus Christ he will be saved, whether he be " baptized by one drop of water on the foremad, or be plunged into the Ohio or Susquehanna, although immersion is the only gate by which one enters their earthly commnnion. . The enemies of Evangelism also misrepresent the Methodist Church. Tney say the Methodist Chnrch believes that a man can convert himself, and that conversion in that church, is a temporary, emotion and that all a man has to do is to kneel down at the altar and feel bad, and then the minister pats him on the back and says: ' “It is all right,” and that is all there is of it False again, the Methodist Chnrch believes that the Holy Ghost alone can convert a heart and in the church conversion is an earthquake of conversion and a sunburst of pardon. And as a mere “temporary emotion,” I wish we all had more of the “temporary emotion” which lasted Bisbop James and Matthew Simpson for a half century, keeping them on fire for God until their holy enthusiasm consumed their bodies. . So all the evangelical denominations are misrepresented. And then these enemies of evangelism go on and hold up the great doctrines of Christian Churches as absurd, dry and inexplicable technicalities. “There is your doctrine of the Trinity,” they eav, “absurd beyond all bounds. The idea that there is a God in three persons. Impossible. If it is one God He can’t be in three, and if there are three, they be o ne. At th& Bame time all of us —they with us — acknowledge trinities all around us. Trinity is our own make-up-body, mind, soul. Body with which we move, mind with which we think, eoul with which we love. Three, yet one man. Trinity in the air—light, heat, moisture —yet one atmosphere. Trinity in the court-room—three judges on the bench, but one court. Trinities all around about us, in earthly government and in nature. Of course, ail the illustrations are defective, for the reason that the natural can not fully illustrate the spiritual. But suppose an ignorant man should, come up to a chemist and say: “I deny what you say about the water and about the air; they are not made of different parts. The air is one; I breathe it every day. The water is one; I drink it every day. You can’t deceive me about the elements that go to make up the air and the water.” The chemist would say. “You conae up into my laboratory and I will demonstrate this whole thirig to you.” The ignorant man goes into the chemist’s laboratory, and sees for himself. He learns that the water is one and the air is one, but they are mude up of different parts. So here is a man who says: “I can’t understand the doctrine of the Trinity.” God says: “You come up here into the laboratory after your death, and you will see—you wili see it explained, you will see it demonstrated.” The ignorant man can not understand the chemistry of the water and the air until he goes into the laboratory, and we will never understand the Trinity until we go into heaven. The ignorance of the man who can not understand the: c> emistry of the air and water does not change,the fact in regard to the composition of air and water. Because we can not understand the Trinity, does that change the fact? “And there is your absurd doctrine about justification by faith,” say these antagonists who have chewed up the little book of Evangelism and have the consequent embittered stomach. “Justification by faith—you can’t explain it.” I can explain it. It is simply this: When a man takes the Lord Jesus Christ as his Savior from sin God lets theoffemer off. Just as you have a difference with some one—he has injured you; he apologizes, or he makes reparation; you say: “Now, that’s all right; that’s ail right.” Justification by faith is this: A man takes Je us Christ as his Savior,and God t-ays to the man; “Now, it was all wrong before, but it is all right now;itiß all right.” That was what made Martin Luther what he was. Justification by faith, it is going to conquer all nations. “Theije is your absurd doctrine about regeneration,” 4 those antagonists of evangelism say. What is regeneration? Why, regeneration is reconstruction. Any body can understand that. Have you not seen people who are all made over again by some wonderful influence? In othej words, they are just different from what they used to be as possible. “There is your absurd doctrine of vicarious sacrifice,” say these men who have chewed up the little book of creeds, and have the consequent embittered stomach. Vicarious sacrifice! Let every man suffer for hiinselE Why do I want Christ to suffer ior me? I’ll suffer for myself and cairy my own burdens.” They scoff at the idea of vicarious sacrifice, while the“y admire it everywhere else fexcept ip Christ. People see its beauty when a mother suffers ior her chi ld. People see its beauty »hen a patriot suffers for his country. People see its beauty when a man denies himself for a friend. They can see the beauty of vicarious sacrifice in everyone but Christ. Be it ours to admire and adore these doctrines at which others jeer. Oh, the depths of the riches both of the wisdom and knowledge Of God! How unsearchable is His wisdom, and His ways are past finding out! Oh, the height, the depth, the length, the breadth, the infinity, the immensity, the eternity of that lovel Let our earnest piayers go out in behalf of all those who scoff at These doctrines of grace. <■: When the London plague was raging in 1665, there was a hotel near the chief burial place that excited much comment, England was in fright and bereavement The dead carts went through the streets day and night, and the cry: “Bring* out your dead!” was answered by the bringing out of the forme of the loved ones, and they were put twenty or thirty in a cart, and the wagons drove en to the cemetery, and > those dead were not buried in graves, but in great trenches, in great pita—in one pit eleven hundred and Jourteen burials! The carts would come up with their great burden of twenty or thirty to the mouth of the pit, and the front of the cart was lifted and the dead shot into the pit. All the churches in London were open for prayers day and night, and England was in great anguish/ At that very time at a hotel—at a w°yside inn—near the chief burial place, there was a group of hardened men, who sat day sifter day and night after night blaspheming God and imitating the grief-struck who went by to the burial place. These men sat there day after day and night after night, and they scoffed at men,and they scoffed at women, and they scoffed at God. But after a while one of them was struck

with the plague, and in two wfeeks all of the group were do «m in the trench from the margin of which they had ottered their ribaldry. My friends, a greater plagne is abroad in the world. Millions have died from it. Millions are smitten with it now. Plague of sin, plague of gorrow, plague of wretchedness, plague of woe, and consecrated women and men from all Christendom are going out trying to stay the plague and alleviate the .anguish, and there is a group of meq in this country base enough to sit ana deride the work. They scoff at tqe Bible, and they scoft at evangelism, and they Bcoff at Jeans Christ, aud they scoff at God. If these words shall reach them, either while they are sitting here to-day, or through the printing press, let me tell them to remember the fate of that grouD in The wayside inn while the plague spread its two black wings over the doomed city of London. Oh, instead of being scoffers let us be disciples! “Blessed is the man that walketh not in the counsel of the ungodly, nor standeth in the way of sinners, nor sitteth in the seat of the scornful!”